Clients with fun and colorful personalities inspired a bold blue color choice in this efficient Colorado kitchen. Working with a room of just under 100 square feet, interior Cheap Kitchen Drawers designer Margie McCulloch found that her first order of business was creating a thoughtful layout to open up the space. She added an ample, well-placed working island, carved out a much-needed pantry and improved the flow. Next she made the room bright and cheerful with brilliant blue cabinetry and personal touches, while keeping things clean by using modern lines and just the right amount of white. "Photos by Kimberly Gavin; photo styling by Elaine St. Louis
BEFORE: The new kitchen is part of a full-house renovation. Most of Cheap Kitchen Drawers the living space is on the first floor, and the master bedroom is in a loft upstairs.
AFTER: On the right you’ll catch a sliver of the cookbook and wine shelves that face the hallway. “Books make a place so warm and personal,” McCulloch says. The side of the shelves serves as part of the refrigerator surround (see the first photo). The shelves also play off the new bookshelves around the dining banquette (to the left of the front door.)
Expanding the existing window provided a view out over the sink and lots of natural light. The glass cabinet fronts bounce the light around and let the homeowners show off some of their Cheap Kitchen Drawers collections. The gridded tiles extend all the way to the ceiling — their surfaces reflect the light, while the layout keeps things clean and modern. The countertops are made of a lightweight concrete product that incorporates recycled paper, recycled glass and low-carbon cement.
“An induction [cooktop] is more efficient with less oxygen than gas is,” says the designer of this choice for the high-altitude location. In a kitchen with limited counter space, the homeowners can also place things in the stove when it’s not in use. The induction cooker also lends a cleaner look to Cheap Kitchen Drawers the small space, as do simple stainless steel shelves for cooking oils and herbs. A microwave-convection oven is tucked in the island.
BEFORE: The right side of this hallway was simply the back side of a bedroom wall. Red Pepper Design & Cabinetry1AFTER: The designer borrowed just a foot of depth from the bedroom to create this long, tall row of cabinets that measures 5 feet wide by 6½ feet high by 1 foot deep. “Originally the homeowner Cheap Kitchen Drawers wanted the doors and trim to be wood, but I knew that would draw the eye away from the blue in the kitchen,” she says. The new doors blend into the hallway. Because the shelves are only a foot deep, it’s easy to find everything — nothing gets lost in the back.Red Pepper Design & Cabinetry2Here is the reconfigured dining area and living room, which are open to the kitchen. A new bench seat and bookshelves surround the table and Cheap Kitchen Drawers leave the views of the surrounding ranch and western landscape wide open. The once orangy pine ceilings have an updated darker stain. Once the couple preps a meal in the kitchen, they can enjoy it here while overlooking beaver dams, creeks and mountains. The land they look out upon is open space that can never be built upon. Here is the plan for the kitchen. As you can see, the bedroom lost a few feet to the pantry, but Cheap Kitchen Drawers gained a new bookshelf that is flush with the new wall."